


The Boy Under the Staircase

by PotatoesOfWorldlyDesire



Category: Archie Comics & Related Fandoms, Riverdale (TV 2017), Riverdale (TV 2017) RPF
Genre: Alcoholism, Character Study, Emo, Emotional, Gen, Introspection, thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 09:34:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14186031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PotatoesOfWorldlyDesire/pseuds/PotatoesOfWorldlyDesire
Summary: Some nights, Jughead can't will himself to sleep. This isn't because he's not tired. It's because he can't stop thinking.





	The Boy Under the Staircase

Sometimes, lying in bed in that closet underneath a school staircase, Jughead allows himself to chuckle at his predicament. Who is he, Harry Potter?  
No. He's the outsider who has no choice but to live in a town that already has their minds made up about him. And for what? His personality? His family? His father?

His father. Now, there's a subject he doesn't want to think about, but he can't stop his brain from leaping on it like he would on a burger from Pops right now. Fuck, he's hungry. 

His father. Their relationship is... Rocky, at best. He closes his eyes and he tries to pinpoint the day when he first realised that there was something wrong, that his father wasn't invincible. It would probably be less cliched and more poetic to say he couldn't, but he can. He was ten years old, and he had just started trying to write seriously. He wasn't exactly Keats, but he was better than most of the kids in his class. He'd even started writing outside of school. 

His first story was about a picnic his family had gone on- Eversgreen forest. Summertime. Birds in the trees, and Jellybean picking flowers for their mother. It was an innocent snapshot of their family time, so innocent it could have been animated by Walt Disney himself. 

It was the best thing he'd ever written- and the only thing he'd ever written, but that was beside the point. He'd given it to his mother to read, and her kind face and lit up with a grin, especially for him.

'Oh, Juggy! You're amazing!' She'd ruffled his hat and displaced his hair, before handing the paper back and kissing him on the cheek. 'Go show your father.'

Jughead went outside their trailer at that point, finding his father stood outside, talking to what he would later recognise as South Side Serpents. He knew better than to interfere with his father during business time, so he waited and watched patiently from the front step, until they revved up their motorcycles and sped away, leaving his father to turn around and see his son watching intently, the couple of pages slightly rumpled in his hands as his hands tightened slightly at the look on his father's face. 

Still, he ran up to his father. 'Dad! Dad!'

'Yes, Jug?' 

'I wrote a story! Mom says you should read it, too!' 

FP Jones took the paper, ruffled his son's hat, and went inside the trailer. 

Jughead was happy- so happy. He played with some of the other trailer park kids for a while, until it was time for dinner. His father was at the head of the table, with Jughead on his right, excitedly munching on a french fry. 'So did you read it?'

'Huh?' FP blinked, before taking a sip of his beer, freshly opened. 'Oh, right- your story- no, son. I haven't yet. I will though,I promise. This time tomorrow.'

He hadn't read it by that time tomorrow. He didn't read it for another- wait. Jughead's breath stopped. Had his father ever read it? He shook his head and opened his eyes, staring blankly at the grey ceiling once more. It didn't matter what his father had or hadn't read. He knew that. He wrote for himself, and one day his father wouldn't have any choice but to read his son's work, because it would be the talk of Riverdale. 

He tried to put an end to those thoughts of his father, then. He honestly tried, and it usually worked, but not tonight. 

The memory of the first time his father hadn't read something sparked the rest of the memories, and all of a sudden Jughead's mind was on fire. The first time he'd written a story his teacher had pinned on the wall in school, with the best writers. The first time he'd won a writing contest. The first time he'd been anonymously published in the town newspaper (he would have told his father, if FP hadn't been too drunk to talk).

Drunk. Jughead hated that word. He hated it with a vengeance. The first time he'd seen his father drunk, he'd been a fun dad. It had been just after a family wedding, and he was playing with Jughead and Jellybean while their mother looked on and laughed, shaking her head. That was how being drunk should have stayed. An occasional occurrence. Fuck, he wished it would have stayed like that. 

He thought back to the night that had caused him to move out. He'd come home from school and his mother was gone. Jellybean was gone. Their things were gone. His father was also gone, but in a different way. FP was slumped on the couch, with several bottles littered around him. He wasn't a functioning alcoholic anymore. He could barely drag himself to the fridge to get another beer- it was a wonder how he hadn't choked on his own vomit yet, and Jughead felt a stab of pity for his father. 

The anger soon outweighed it, though. 

'Dad?' FP didn't respond until Jughead lightly slapped his face. 'Dad!'

'Hrruh? Jug? Where's your mother?' FP's voice was so slurred Jughead could barely make out the words. His heart sank. 

'She- they- they left, Dad. Mom's gone.' FP's eyes were dull, and uncomprehending. They weren't surprised.

'Why?'

'Look at yourself, Dad. Fuck, you're not even my Dad anymore, are you? You're like a squatter, who doesn't do anything but sit on the couch and drink, and drink, and-' Jughead stopped himself, because his father had finally focused his eyes on his son. 

'You think it's so easy, son? Providing for you and your sister? You think you can just waltz on out there and get a job and support us?'

'There is no more 'us' to support, Dad! They're gone.' Jughead didn't bother reminding his father that he'd had a job at the drive-in for the better part of a year, or that he'd been paying for most of their food with the better part of his salary. 'Dad, you can't keep doing this. You can't keep promising you're going to clean yourself up and then reverting back to this- this person who I don't even recognise!'

FP staggered to his feet at this, and for the first time in his life Jughead was afraid of his father. FP was tall and stocky, made of muscles. Jughead wasn't the least muscular kid in the world, but he wasn't exactly Muhammad Ali. But he was tired. His hands balled themselves into fists, and he squared up to his father, the atmosphere in the trailer suddenly red-hot, like a match about to ignite. 

'You don't talk to me like that, Forsythe Jones III. Not now. Not ever.' His father's voice was dangerously low, and the veins in his neck were bulging out. Every muscle in his body was tense and he looked ready for a fight. Inviting Jughead to throw the first punch. 

Jughead noticed the broken glass on the floor. It was right next to a note on the fridge in what he realised was his mother's handwriting. 

His father did know that they'd left. 

All at once, the tension went out of Jughead's shoulders, and he stepped down. 'I'm leaving, Dad. You need to change. You need to fix all... This.' Jughead gestured to the room around him. 

'Where are you gonna go, son?'

'I'll figure it out, Dad.'

Jughead bit the inside of his cheek as he stopped the memory in its tracks. He did figure it out, until Hiram Lodge happened. He'd keep figuring it out, though. He still remembered the reek of his father's breath and the angry, hurt look in his eyes. There was so much pain and bad blood between them that it didn't matter what Archie said. There was no way he could go back to living like that. Dreading coming home. At least this way, school was home. Home, and rent-free at that. 

He is good at figuring things out. He reminds himself of that, as he succumbs to the blackness of sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> I love Jughead so much. Innocent cinnamon roll.
> 
> If you want me to write more Jughead, please like or comment letting me know what you liked and what you'd like me to write! Constructive criticism is appreciated!


End file.
